


Under His Skin

by sodapeach



Category: VICTON (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Denial of Feelings, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Introspection, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Mutual Pining, bad language and some crude humor, if it feels like a metaphor it probably is, mentions of body issues, tattooing, there’s a lot to unpack here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25192321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodapeach/pseuds/sodapeach
Summary: Chan goes to Hanse’s apartment not expecting to end up with a new tattoo or a new relationship.
Relationships: Do Hanse/Heo Chan
Comments: 18
Kudos: 85
Collections: Lucky 7 Victon





	Under His Skin

**Author's Note:**

> prompt #074: Hanse giving Chan his first tattoo at 3 in the morning.
> 
> me: ok guys time to get tattooed (・∀・)  
> chanse: and by get tattooed you mean work out years of repressed feelings and repeated rejections right?  
> me: nO????
> 
> ok i’ve never had a fic get away from me this hard before but i hope the prompter can forgive me but jesus take the wheel these boys do not listen 😭 
> 
> anyways here’s wonderwall

How could a night be so long?

Chan sat on his bed with his back against the wall. A faint trickle of rain wandered down his windows blurring the sharp purples and golds of the outside world into something unrecognizable. All the lights were off except for a single lamp at his bedside and the glow of his phone propped up against his lap. He gave up on sleep hours ago, days even. He knew that if he wasn’t out by midnight, it wouldn’t matter so rather than putting himself in a bad mood, he just kept himself up as if it was his own choice.

It was so good to be awake…

He sighed as he looked out the window. The world was cold and bleak, and it left him with a sense of melancholy only surpassed by the coziness he felt bundled up in his own blankets, but yet, somehow what bothered him more than the lack of sleep was his own loneliness. 

Hours before, there were still people outside. They hailed their cabs and hoisted their umbrellas, and each moved like they went unseen. Each person lived like the main character of their own movie, able to move and speak freely and loudly without anyone in the world noticing, but up above, Chan watched with only the right amount of curiosity. He never judged or wanted, only waited for them to slip out of view onto the next scene.

And then there was no one. So Chan turned his attention to the world that never slept: twitter, instagram, youtube, reddit, tumblr, facebook, it didn’t matter because even after his finger double tapped on the things that amused him, once he swiped away, they were out of sight and out of mind for good. What Chan craved the most from up inside his room either perched on his window sill or curled up in his bed on his phone was a real human connection that alone in his room he just didn’t have.

If he couldn’t be the main character, he wanted to be the person the main character came looking for, he decided. One day someone would pass under that streetlight to come looking for him, and until then he would be waiting.

Halfway through a dramatic sigh that gave Shakespeare a run for his money, Chan received a text too late to be anyone but one of his closest friends, a night owl by trade. 

“Bro, go to bed,” the message said. 

Chan looked down at his phone and huffed before typing “I am in bed. You go to bed.”

“I just got off work,” Hanse said. “And your light is on.”

“Don’t just know which apartment is mine. It’s weird.”

“It’s not weird when you’re the only one who ever has his light on this late.”

“If this was the olden days, I’m sure that would mean something.”

“I’m sure it would.”

Hanse was one of the first friends Chan made when he moved to the city. They were close enough in age that he always had someone he could relate to, but their lives were so vastly different, anyone on the outside would have never suspected that they matched each other as well as they did.

“Do you wanna hang out,” he asked. “I’m bored, and no one else is awake.”

“Is that all I’m here for,” Chan sent with a crying emoji. “A team substitute?”

“Nah, but that’s the only way you’ll agree to leave your apartment,” Hanse sent with a wink.

Out of principle, that was enough to make Chan want to stubbornly stay in bed for the rest of the night, but if this was even a fraction of the human interaction he craved, how could he pass up such a golden opportunity?

The answer was, he couldn’t, but at least staying up to visit with Hanse after work was better than sitting up alone because he had trouble sleeping. One of those options was satisfying, and it wasn’t the one that could send him down a wikipedia rabbit hole.

“I guess… I could drop by,” he typed out, wary.

“Okay, I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

Chan didn’t need to be told the way. He had been to Hanse’s apartment a million times since he moved into the building. Hanse wasn’t the kind of person who liked being alone too much it seemed so he was always inviting him over whenever he could, and at first Chan couldn’t understand why he didn’t just get a roommate, but then as they became closer and Hanse stopped standing on ceremony, he quickly discovered the reason.

Chan pushed the door open, and reached down to grab the damp, used towel that was caught beneath it. He tossed it to the side so he could close the door behind him and announced that he was there.

“Hanse?”

“Yeah,” he called back. It sounded like he was in his room so Chan wandered into the living room to make himself comfortable, wading through the piles of clothes and junk on the floor like it was a sea of empty soda cans. 

Yes, the reason why Hanse preferred to live alone was that he was one of the messiest people Chan had ever met, but he was at the same time, immaculately clean. His bathroom was spotless and smelled like a distant brand of soap he had never come across anywhere else before mixed with a disinfectant sweeter than anything he had ever smelled in a hospital. 

His kitchen was spotless even though the poor man lived off of delivery food because of his schedule, but there was never any rotten food lying around, never any unwashed dishes in the sink, and even the inside of his microwave had been scrubbed clean. If a person could dare call Hanse a slob, another could dare call him a germaphobe.

Chan, used to the space like it was his own home, picked up a pile of unfolded t-shirts and dropped them on top of the pile of unfolded bath towels in the laundry basket at his own feet. He had half a mind to fold them for him, but he had never quite gotten the hang of the retail-quality t-shirt fold himself.

He plopped down on the couch with a small squeak coming from below and thought that maybe it was time for Hanse to retire Ole Rusty. Speaking of the devil, Hanse wandered out of his room just having changed out of his work clothes. He was in a black sleeveless shirt with the sides cut down all the way to his waist in a way that if he moved wrong, Chan might have had a reason to blush.

As Hanse sat down next to him, he moved wrong. Chan looked away like he didn’t see anything he shouldn’t have, but he felt like a touch starved Victorian who had just spotted an ankle in the wild.

“You off of work?” Chan asked, hoping to distract both of them from his own reaction.

“No, I’m still going,” he said with a playful grin. “I’m still at the shop, can’t you tell?”

“I’m being polite,” he said with a frown.

“You’re making small talk,” Hanse pointed out. 

“Small talk is polite.”

“Small talk is polite if you don’t know each other,” he said. “People who know each other make small talk when they have something else they want to say.”

Did Chan have something to say to him? He was sure that the only reason he had been remotely awkward was that he just saw a flash of a nipple out of the corner of his eye with a silver glint that made him think that it had possibly been pierced. But of course Hanse had pierced nipples. Why wouldn’t he have? Chan practically rolled his eyes at himself for being so uptight.

When they first met, all Hanse had was a lip ring and a tasteful hoop through the cartilage of his left ear that made him look like a fairy on his first trip to the city. Now both ears had been plentifully decorated in silver studs and hoops with a chain threaded through one side like a snake. The lip ring had since found a long term partner on the other side of Hanse’s mouth, and where once it had been the only silvery friend on Hanse’s face, now it was joined by a stud in his eyebrow and a delicate hoop that hung from his septum. He was decorated like a Christmas tree except the only present there was Hanse himself.

His piercings weren’t the only things different about him. Hanse had also gone from a single dragon on his left arm to two full sleeves, a few new friends on his ribs that Chan had never seen well enough to know what they were, a few different pieces of his inner self on his legs poking out where the basketball shorts rode up, and then there was, of course, the demon on his throat that seemed to watch Chan from every angle.

“You’re staring,” Hanse pointed out. 

He had said before a thousand times that he was used to it, but he still made a point to mention whenever he caught Chan looking. People stared at him more because they were curious rather than out of judgement or sheer blind hate. Of course, there were always conservative bystanders who thought of him as a crude anomaly, clutching their purses to their sides or feeling for their wallets whenever he walked by.

Not long after he had undergone most of these changes, they went out together once. As friends, of course. Chan, who had seen his progression little by little, never thought he looked strange or unusual, but that was when he felt the eyes on their backs as if he was someone who could have been considered unusual. Chan didn’t like it so much.

When the store clerk followed them past a display and asked for him to empty his pockets, his face had turned a hideous shade of red. He had never stolen from another human being a day in his life! Hanse, on the other hand was a sickly shade of green. They easily proved their innocence, but once they got out of earshot, Hanse apologized.

“This happens sometimes,” he had said, trying to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal once Chan expressed that he was more upset that people treated him that way by default than he was about being accused of stealing.

“It isn’t right,” Chan said, angry enough to go back and give the nosy employee a piece of his mind, but Hanse had waved him off. He said it was just an ugly stereotype and that as long as he could prove that it wasn’t true by having cleans hands, then he didn’t mind being stopped.

But even though Chan never was one to glare at his tattooed neighbor, the demon on his throat always did something to him.

“Why did you get that,” he asked while Hanse patiently watched him gawk even after being called out for it.

Hanse tilted his head back so that he could see the full thing. The tattoo was a contrast of red and black and had faded around where the natural creases of his neck were. It stared back at him with wide eyes and a sharp toothed smile. 

“I feel like it would take ages to explain what it means, and I don’t want to give you shitty information over a tattoo I saw on myself in a dream,” Hanse said while staring up at his ceiling. “But I would say it’s a mix between the complexities of human emotion and the masks that we wear every day even if not by choice.”

“On your throat.”

“Yep,” he said, still looking up. 

“That’s all I was curious about,” Chan said.

Hanse lowered his head and cracked his stiff neck. “You always stare at this one.”

“It’s because it always stares back.”

Hanse snorted. “Ah, right, I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Doesn’t it watch you brush your teeth,” he laughed. 

“That early in the morning and that late at night, it’s just a red blur,” he sighed, sinking down into his couch. “What do you wanna do? Play a game? Watch TV? Spy on the people across the street?”

“Do all your tattoos have meaning?” Chan asked, still hung up on a thought.

“Nope,” he said.

“I’ve never gotten one because I couldn’t think of anything that meant that much to me,” he considered.

“They don’t have to mean anything,” Hanse said. “Although, please don’t make me slap an _I heart my mom_ on your shoulder like some dude who scams billiards players for a living.”

Chan snorted. “No, I love my mom, but I think she’d yank my arm off if I tried it.”

“It would be really hard to teach rock climbing with only one arm,” Hanse said. “But I guess not impossible.”

“I, for one, am happy to not have to try it,” he said. 

The room died out with a lingering thought that Chan didn’t know he had been having. 

“Hey, would you give me a tattoo sometime,” he asked. 

“Sure,” he said, surprised.

“I don’t know how appointments work, but I’m probably not supposed to just drop by,” he said. “Do I need to call or something? Or is there like a google form I’m supposed to fill out?”

Hanse laughed until the sound got lost in the back of his mouth. “No, don’t worry about it. I can just do it here, but you can always just drop by the shop whenever you want. You don’t need an appointment, but if I’m busy with a client, Sejun the piercer might give you a freebie if you bring him a snack.”

“Here?!” Chan said with wide eyes, not even noticing Hanse’s invitation.

“Mhm,” he said. “I have a kit here.”

“Is it safe,” he looked around, wary, 

“It’s just as clean as the shop is,” Hanse said with a shrug, and then, upon seeing Chan’s eyes flicker over to the trash on the floor, added, “well, I mean, not _here._ I tattoo in the kitchen.”

“Is that legal?”

“Are you going to tell anyone?”

“No,” he laughed. 

“Then it’s fine,” Hanse said, slapping the tops of his own legs with determination. “What do you want to get?”

“I really don’t know,” he said. “What do people get in Hanse’s kitchen?”

“Food poisoning if Hanse cooks,” he sighed. “But for tattoos, I only have black ink here so just small stuff like tiny daggers or spiders or infinity symbols. Very popular with the film camera and black hoodie crowd.”

“Oh so you don’t, like, do crazy stuff.”

“I don’t want to do anything that could take more than an hour in my kitchen,” he said. “And I don’t think you want to sit in a wooden chair for that long either.”

Chan hummed. It made sense. He had seen pictures of those cushiony gray chairs before in pictures, and he thought that if he had to be in that much pain for several hours without moving, he would at least like the chance to lie down.

“I don’t think I want an infinity sign,” he considered. “Or a small dagger.”

“What do you like?”

Chan looked at him and twisted his mouth in thought. It was like he was searching for an answer in Hanse’s face, and although it was on the tip of his tongue, he was never quite able to find it. 

“I have no idea,” he said finally, defeated.

Hanse hummed. “I can just do something if you trust me.”

“You’re not gonna put a dick on my arm are you?”

“No,” he laughed. “But a nice ballsack on the other hand…”

“Bro,” he reached out and swatted him. “I changed my mind! I’ll go book an appointment with someone else!”

“I’m just kidding,” he giggled. “Don’t worry, I got you.”

Chan squinted. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“Since when,” he said with his signature Cheshire Cat smile. Chan squinted harder. _“Alright_ , I might have tricked you once or twice in the past, but I would never give someone a bad tattoo on purpose.”

“What about not on purpose?”

“Accidents happen,” he considered.

Chan swallowed, not at all comforted, but if he was going to ever get his first tattoo, then was as good as ever and Hanse was the only person he wanted to give it to him.

“Alright,” he said. “How do we do this?”

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“Uh, I don’t know? I guess around 5?”

Hanse shook his head. “I’m not tattooing someone on an empty stomach.”

“Oh, you don’t have to feed me,” he waved him off. “That’s too much.”

Hanse snorted. “Bruh, it’s so you don’t pass out on my kitchen floor. We’re past me trying to buy you dinner.”

“Oh,” Chan said, mildly embarrassed. “I guess I can go back to my apartment and look for something.”

“If you’re fine with a sandwich, that would probably be enough to keep you stable,” he said. “I’ve got some stuff for it in the fridge.”

Making a sandwich in someone else’s house felt weird, but Chan threw it together quickly while Hanse went back to get his kit. On the table where Chan assumed he wasn’t supposed to eat, he set out all of the equipment he needed, and at the sight of the needles in their plastic packages, Chan’s stomach churned. Maybe eating something beforehand was a good idea after all.

He finished his sandwich over the sink, and the nerves made him shake all over.

“Does it hurt,” Chan asked, almost ready to pee all over himself.

“Sometimes,” he said vaguely.

“What do you mean _sometimes?”_

“Every time is different and depends on a lot of different variables,” he explained. “The person getting the tattoo, the person giving the tattoo, the weather, exhaustion, the placement, the needle used, and some people even say that certain pigments sting more than others, but I’m actually not sure.”

Chan rubbed his arms subconsciously. “It stings?”

“Mmm, I can’t really explain it,” he considered. “It hurts, but most of the time it’s a pain you can ignore if you keep yourself distracted, but sometimes it feels like someone just popped you with your mom’s curling iron.”

Chan winced.

“But it’s not so bad in the beginning as long as you don’t get it on baby skin or a place with a lot of fat or bone,” he continued. The outside of your bicep will hurt a lot less than the top of your foot or your ass cheek.”

“Is that part even called a bicep,” Chan thought aloud, poking at his own arm. 

“Dude, I don’t know, I’m a tattoo artist, not an anatomy professor.”

“Right,” he laughed. “Okay, I guess I’m ready then.”

“Cool, have a seat.”

Chan sat in the chair at the other corner of the table and patiently waited like a child with his hands in his lap. Hanse slipped on a pair of black latex gloves and started squeezing some of the black liquid into a few tiny cups. He then opened the case, and Chan’s stomach flipped at the sight of the thing that was going to hurt him.

It was bigger than he had imagined. It somehow looked like a piece of the past with its chrome edges and cogs and tubes, but then a piece of the present with the bright pink rubber band wrapped around its body.

“Is that the tattoo gun?”

“Tattoo machine,” he corrected him quietly. “I can’t win any duels with it.”

Chan chuckled to himself, too nervous to feel anything but stressed. 

“Put on some gloves and wipe your forearm down for me with that disinfectant,” he said. “Don’t touch anything with your hands though.”

“Got it,” he said. “Like this?”

“Mhm,” he said, and as Chan tossed the wipe he used in the trash, he heard a loud metallic whir that made his head spin. It was like a cross between a dentist’s drill and the sound of a tiny little saw made of pain aimed right for his arm. “You ready?”

“I don’t know,” he whined.

“I’ve already got everything set up so if you don’t want it, I’ll just tattoo myself,” Hanse laughed, and Chan straightened up. He was going to take his tattoo away from him? And keep it all to himself? Not on his watch. 

Chan dropped his arm down on the table with a thud and glared at him with determination. _“Draw.”_

Hanse laughed brightly until his eyes glistened with tears. “Are you going to yeehaw at me if I don’t?”

“Giddy up,” Chan knocked on the table. “Hurry up before I chicken out!”

“You scared?” Hanse raised a brow.

 _“No,”_ Chan lied. “What, you can get tattoos and I can’t?” 

Hanse made the machine whir, and Chan felt himself turn green.

“Okay, maybe a little bit,” he said.

“You got this,” Hanse said with confidence. “I’ve seen knee booboos that hurt worse than this will.”

 _“Booboos?”_ Chan had tears in his eyes, and his own high pitched laugh cut through the night air like a knife. “Have you been teaching kindergarteners how to tattoo in your spare time?”

“Whatever loosens you up,” he said more to himself, focused on Chan’s skin. He hummed, and Chan quieted down at his seriousness.

“What?”

“I’m thinking of what to do,” he said. “You sure you don’t have any ideas?”

“I wish to be perceived,” he sighed, leaning onto his other elbow. “Surprise me.”

He opened himself up to anything from a weird laughing zombie face to a cute, chunky corgi, but this was a rare opportunity to have the experience of being seen by another person and to have that image reflected back at him. It was, on one hand, frightening, but on the other, it would finally answer a question he had been dying to know: _what kind of person am I for three seconds on the crosswalk?_

Hanse repositioned his arm and silently gave it a good look like he was outlining the drawing in his own mind. “I should probably stencil this, but it’ll probably be fine.”

That probably did not give Chan the assurance he needed, but he was sure that Hanse wouldn’t tattoo him if he thought he was going to do something hideous.

Probably.

“Do you have any ideas yet?”

“I do,” he said like he meant to elaborate, but then he didn’t.

“Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“No,” he said, oddly chipper. “Okay, try to sit still as much as you can so the lines don’t get wonky.”

Without much more of a warning, he fired up his tattoo machine and leaned over, using his free gloved hand to hold Chan’s arm down. The pressure was uncomfortable, but as soon as the quivering needle touched his skin, he realized why Hanse had gripped him the way he did.

Although the first few seconds didn't hurt the way he imagined they would have, his muscles tensed involuntarily and twitched even though he willed himself to sit still.

“I’m sorry, it’s not me,” Chan apologized.

“Just try your best to relax,” he said calmly, but his grip tightened. “You’re doing great.”

The sensation wasn’t _that_ bad. It was more annoying than anything. It was an itch he couldn’t scratch, a burn he couldn’t pull away from. It was the ache of a bee sting, but he could, for the more part, ignore it. Or so he thought.

He looked down as Hanse drew a long straight line down about two inches, and something about the tiny beads of blood he saw appear made it too real. And then Hanse wiped.

 _“Fuck,”_ he swore. 

“I know, it’s the worst part.”

“A _paper towel_ hurts more than a tattoo gun?!”

“Yep,” Hanse confirmed. “If you think this sucks, imagine me wiping at a whole exposed panel of shaded skin. Yikes.”

“Oh my god,” Chan whined. If one line bothered him that much, how could people stand to get full elaborate pieces? He thought about Hanse’s neck and shuddered. He was invincible. 

“Do you remember how we became friends?”

“Why are you asking me that now of all times,” he said, straining from the burn that traveled up to the crease of his elbow.

“To keep your mind off of this so you don’t tap out on me.”

“Oh. Yeah, it was in the laundry room downstairs.”

“Was it? I thought it was the mail boxes.”

“I think we met at the mail boxes, but I’m pretty sure we became friends in the laundry room.”

“Ahhh,” Hanse laughed. “I remember. You had just moved out on your own and had never done your own laundry before and couldn’t figure out how to get the suds in the machine.”

“Is that so,” Chan said, looking away. “I don’t remember that.”

Hanse giggled to himself as he continued to tattoo him despite Chan’s poor attempt to forget his clumsy past. “So how _did_ we become friends then?”

“I think we agreed to not tell the rest of this story.”

“Did we? I don’t remember that.”

“Convenient.”

“I suppose I can tell it all by myself then, since you can’t move.”

Chan winced, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the pain of his broken baby skin or the memory that Hanse so aggressively wanted to bring back.

“Once upon a time–.”

“I am begging.”

Hanse giggled brightly. “So if I remember correctly, you had no idea where the suds were supposed to go.”

“I do not recall.”

“And so, naturally, instead of, I don’t know, asking someone, you thought you should just toss the whole box in and hope for the best.”

“It wasn’t the whole box,” Chan grumbled.

“Cardboard and all.”

“Shut up.”

“So this genius, meaning you, decides that it would be a good idea to dump all the laundry powder in with his socks and gym shorts like that was a good idea,” Hanse said with a fond grin, and it wasn’t so much from a fondness for Chan but for what happened after.

Chan groaned and slumped over as much as he could without moving his arm, but he was dying to get away. Like to another country away.

“And then the next thing we know, the whole laundry room is covered in suds like a fucking slip-and-slide,” Hanse said, barely keeping it together.

“Great, laugh it up, enjoy my pain.”

“Oh, I am,” he said proudly. “And then what happened?”

“The building manager told me if I didn’t clean it up, I was out on the street the next morning,” Chan grumbled.

“And then?”

He let out a stubborn sigh. “And then you stayed to help me clean it up even though you had no reason to.”

Hanse wore a smug smile as he drew another line across Chan’s arm.

It had been just before midnight when the two of them finally stopped cleaning, soaked to their knees in water from crawling around on the laundry room floor. All they had been given was a stringy mop and a bucket, and combined with all of Chan’s dirty towels, eventually they got the floor clean and dry enough for Chan to get to keep his apartment.

To thank him, Chan bought this kind (and at the time barely tattooed) stranger a box of chicken and they sat on the roof together to eat where they became formally introduced.

“Good thing I was there,” Hanse said. “You’d be homeless.”

“I’m sure I could have handled it by myself,” he grumbled.

“I’m sure you could have,” he said, absent. Even though the conversation was intended to keep Chan’s mind busy, Hanse seemed to be even more focused as it died out. 

Chan was sure he could handle the pain now that he knew what it felt like. It was _annoying_ but tolerable, and he eventually found a way to will his arm to stop shaking long enough for Hanse to draw a few more straight lines.

He agreed not to look because he wanted to be surprised, but he could tell the design was geometric. A rubix cube perhaps? Was Hanse calling him a complex scrambled block? Of course, the asshole he was, he could have very well been tattooing a washing machine on his arm to commemorate their beautiful friendship.

Chan would kill him.

“How much do you have left?” Chan asked.

Hanse hummed. “I want to thicken up these lines now that you’re not shaking anymore, and then I might do a little shading, and then you’re good to go.”

“That was fast,” he caught himself complaining. 

“You did good,” Hanse said like clockwork. Chan figured he probably had to tell his clients that all the time because for some reason people tend to like to hear that they have a high pain tolerance even when they don’t.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Chan said, assuming that was custom as well. Hanse smiled to himself and continued. The constant buzz from the tattoo machine filled the air for them, and Chan’s mind went back to rooftop chicken and soapy first meetings.

His friendship with Hanse was strange. In most situations, they would have never crossed paths, but yet as they were then, Hanse had become a friendly recurring part of Chan’s life, and Chan a part of his. Hanse was familiar. Even though he could be a pain in his ass, he was someone Chan felt quite comfortable with. He was glad that Hanse was the one tattooing him and not a stranger because he supposed there were few people who Chan could trust with his own skin, unstenciled.

“Why did you start tattooing?”

Hanse clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I thought it was cool.”

“You thought it was cool?” Chan snorted.

Hanse smirked. “Yep.”

“That’s a big commitment…”

“Why do people become astronauts,” Hanse said.

“To go to space?”

“Nope,” he said. “Because they think it’s cool.”

Chan laughed. “Alright, fine, so how did it catch your interest?”

Hanse thought for a moment as he etched tiny marks into his skin and wiped away the excess ink and blood with a hiss from Chan.

“I was a shy kid,” he said. “Kinda had a funny voice, wasn’t really that tall, and I liked weird shit. Needless to say that growing up sucked, but like who likes to dwell? Anyways, I knew this guy and he was covered in tattoos, and the way he walked made me think that nobody could fuck with him. It wasn’t that he looked like a criminal or anything, but his aura was like there was a thick shield around him, but then when he spoke he was really nice. His grandma was in a nursing home with my great aunt so he basically lived there, and he learned how to knit with the other grannies, and he even gave my mom a pair of batwing mittens for Christmas one year. So I thought, hm, this is the kind of person I want to be when I grow up. I wanted to look cool as shit, feel cool as shit, and not care what anyone thought of me, but I also wanted to be kind. I wanted to be a good person on my own terms.”

“You are a good person,” Chan said, lost in thought. “Sometimes you’re a demon, but I’ve never seen you do or say anything mean to another person in your life.”

“Thank you,” he smiled, pleased.

“So that explains the aesthetic, but not the job,” Chan pointed out.

“Kind of limited on options with a devil on your throat,” Hanse mumbled.

“Oh,” he laughed. “That makes sense.”

“I like to draw though,” he said. “Like I think I would have been an artist no matter what, but I think this job suits me.”

“You into the blood?” Chan teased.

“The people,” he said. “The blood is the worst part.”

“Didn’t you once say that you were afraid of other people?”

Hanse hummed. “When someone sits in my chair, unless they’re an asshole, they’re there because they need something I can do, but they’re also there because they need someone to talk to. Something about getting tattooed, possibly the adrenaline, makes people open up like you’re their therapist, and it’s strange because even if you can’t really make anything better, you can give them this piece of art that they think will help them heal.”

“And does it,” Chan asked, something catching in his throat.

“Maybe,” he said. “But at least they had someone to talk to.”

“Do you have someone to talk to?”

Hanse smiled to himself. “Of course I do, I’m a tattoo artist.”

Chan thought about all the late nights he came home and texted him because he saw the light on from Chan’s apartment and wondered if just talking to people everyday was enough. What if this person, who lived like a tornado passed through his life, needed to be the one in the chair for once?

“You’re staring at me,” he said.

“I’m not allowed to look at my arm, where else should I stare?” Chan asked, flustered.

“You can look in a minute,” he said, not giving him much of a better answer.

“Hmph.”

Chan looked around, his thoughts from earlier fresh on his mind.

“Do you ever wish you were the main character?”

“Of what?”

“Life, I guess.”

“I think it’s a bit much to ask the whole world to revolve around one person,” he said.

“I didn’t think about that.”

“Besides, everyone loves side characters,” he smiled. “Main characters are overrated. I would much rather be the dependable sidekick or the guy with all the secrets than the one everyone has to expect an act of heroism from. If I’m not interesting, then I don’t have anything to apologize for. If I’m not brave, I’m not letting anyone down. If I’m not likeable, I’m looked over. I’m not the underdog, the villain, or the point of view. I’m just Hanse.”

Chan hummed and nodded, absorbing everything he said like he was tasting tiny bites of food. 

“What got you on this?”

“I was watching people earlier and wondering where they were going, and they all looked so important that I wondered what it would be like to be them.”

Saying it out loud made him feel like a creep or even a narcissist, but Hanse wasn’t the type to judge. Hanse spent his whole life becoming someone who didn’t judge others for who they were or how they thought or what they looked like.

“That makes sense,” he said, thinking too.

“If you were the side character or the best friend or the lovable number two, who would you want to be your main character?”

“You, I guess.”

Chan almost choked. “Me?! Why?”

“Because you want to be,” he said plainly. “I would rather circle around someone who I knew was a good person than just any random person on the street with a clear direction.”

_Ah, it’s because I want the attention._

“Maybe I don’t want to be the main character anymore,” Chan said. “You made it sound awful.”

“That’s just because I don’t think I could handle being the focus of the whole world,” he said. “But I suppose if it’s just one person, that wouldn’t be so bad.”

“I don’t know if I’m up for that kind of commitment either,” he said sadly. Hanse glanced up at him, but went back to his task without saying anything. “I don’t want someone to put that much energy into me, and then I disappoint them. Or worse. I think I would rather disappoint the whole world than that one person.”

“I’m sure if they were given the choice, they wouldn’t mind taking the risk,” he said, but before Chan could respond, the machine turned off, and the sound of silence startled him. “All done!”

“It’s done?!” Chan almost shouted. “Already?”

“Yeah, you sat like a champ,” he said, proud. “Next time we’ll do something crazy like a two headed mermaid on your thigh.”

“A two headed what on my who now?!”

“I think it’d be pretty sick if you ask me,” he said with a grin that suggested he was joking.

“I don’t think my thighs would be very good for tattoos,” he said, self conscious. They had never talked about his body issues before because what kind of neighbors just sat around and said _hey dude I think my ass is too fat_ , but the thought of pulling up his shorts and Hanse realizing he would have a huge project on his hands made him want to vomit.

“I think they’d be perfect,” Hanse said. “But that’s just me. Don’t let me get carried away.”

“Ah, okay,” he laughed awkwardly. “Can I see it?”

“By all means,” he gestured.

Excited, Chan lifted his arm and saw, even though to him it was upside down, a window that looked like it had been drawn with a ballpoint pen on a scrap of copy paper but like in a good way. Tiny rays of light shown from the glass, and something about the style was familiar. “Is this my window?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, focused on packing away his things and cleaning up his table. 

“Why did you choose this?” Chan knew he was being annoying, but this was so puzzling to him that he needed to know what Hanse’s thought process was.

“Because that’s what I see every night when I come home,” he said. “I look up, and I know you’re in there doing god knows what, but it’s like what it feels like to come home I guess. It’s like coming home from school and hearing your parents in the kitchen even if you go straight to your room and don’t see them until dinner.”

“What happens if the light’s off?”

“The light’s never off,” he said, calling him out. Chan flushed, embarrassed of his nightly habit.

“But what if it is?”

“One night stand,” Hanse teased.

Chan snorted. “I don’t do one night stands.”

“I know,” he said. “You don’t do first dates either.”

Chan wrinkled his nose. “You don’t know that.”

“When was the last time you went on a first date,” he countered, and Chan absolutely couldn’t think of any dates at all since college. He didn’t meet people his age at work, and he didn’t go to clubs anymore so he really just lived his life minding his own business never going out with anyone. “That’s what I thought.”

“Don’t be so,” Chan gestured. 

“So, what?”

“Don’t worry about what I do,” he stuck out his tongue.

“I bet you don’t even have tinder on your phone,” he said with a scoff. 

“Do you?” Chan countered.

“Just for clients,” he shrugged. What did Hanse need tinder for? Was he dating? Did he bring people back to his weird messy apartment with the spotless bathrooms? Did Hanse have a _life?_

“Clients, my ass. Let me see!”

Hanse snorted. “No?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s private,” he laughed. “Go away.”

“Let me see,” Chan said, ignoring how petulant and awful he sounded.

“Why do you want to?” Hanse looked too amused for it not to be a trap, but Chan was nothing if not clumsy enough to step into a snare hidden in plain sight.

“Because I think you go on dates,” he said.

Hanse leaned over on his elbow and slid his phone across the table with a sigh. “Here, then.”

Chan swiped away the lock screen of a drawing of a big beefy cactus with horns and a tail (he didn’t ask), surprised there wasn’t a passcode, and rolled his eyes at the picture of himself with a Santa hat and beard as drunk as a brewery rat that Hanse had set as the background and went straight to the the dating app.

All the _hey cuties_ were left unopened by people of all genders, and it seemed that he really did only use the app to book appointments. Chan checked his profile, and there were pics of him, examples of his work, and his bio had private message info for potential clients.

“You look good in these,” he mumbled. 

“Thank you,” Hanse said, taking his phone back.

“If I want to book an appointment, do I have to match with you on tinder?”

He snorted. “No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. You thinking of coming by the shop then?”

“Maybe,” he said, looking down. “It might be cool to see where you work, and maybe get one of your cool fancy chair tattoos so I can be like a legit tattoo enthusiast.”

“A legit tattoo enthusiast,” he repeated, amused. “Look, you already got your first piece.”

“Yep,” Chan said, proud.

“Mind if I take a look?” 

Hanse reached out and grabbed Chan’s hand, turning his arm carefully so he could see it in the light. Chan, of course, was not at all alerted by the strangeness of having his hand held.

“Admiring your handiwork?”

“Mm,” he said, his mouth thin. “I’d like to go over some places again maybe.”

“I think it looks great,” Chan said. “Don’t be overly critical with yourself.”

“I have to take care of my clients,” he said.

“I’m not a client, I didn’t even pay,” Chan pointed out. “Oh god, I’m such a dick, I didn’t even pay you! How much is this?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” he waved him off. “It’s on the house.”

“I don’t like that,” he frowned.

Hanse sighed. “Alright, then $600.”

Chan choked. _“What?”_

“Plus a tip,” he flashed a wide grin.

Chan put his head on the table and covered himself with his untattooed arm, the other still held out so that he wouldn’t accidentally bump it on something. “I didn’t know they were this expensive.

Hanse cackled. “I’m just kidding! $600 for that, it better fucking move.”

Chan lifted his head, and Hanse ruffled his hair before standing up to put his kit away.

“If you feel like you have to, just drop a twenty by sometime to cover the supplies,” he said. “It’s no big deal though.”

“That’s still not enough,” Chan said. “And I have no idea what these are supposed to cost. I’m clueless here.”

Hanse hummed with a sly grin. “What if I take advantage of that?”

“If it’s $600, I’m going to literally scream.”

“No,” he laughed. “I already got to try that once, and it was worth the look on your face.”

“Okay, then, how are you going to take advantage of me?”

If Chan didn’t know any better, he would have thought that Hanse froze midair for a moment, but then he finished putting up the rest of the supplies like nothing happened.

“You have to agree to the price first,” he said, not looking at him.

“Why should I trust you,” Chan squinted, always suspicious.

“Because it’s part of your quest as the main character,” he said. “You have to trust the trusty side character. That’s why they call us trusty.”

“I don’t know if I like this dynamic very much.”

“I am putting it in terms you understand so your head doesn’t explode,” he said.

“Then what dynamic is this?”

Hanse’s eyes shifted away briefly, and Chan’s stomach did a weird thing. Not like a good thing, but a _I’m about to hear something I’m not ready for_ thing, and his heart stopped. 

_Don’t make me the main character._

“So do you agree?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Dynamic or price?”

“Dynamic,” Chan swallowed.

“Trust me as the guy who likes you.”

Chan’s chest clenched, and his heart raced, and this was exactly what he was afraid was going to happen. He knew he set himself up for this so was he so desperate for attention and validation that he let this happen, or had he been hem hawing around it this whole time like a kid too scared to ask for something he wanted the most in the whole world?

“What’s the price?” 

“One first date,” he said, not looking at him. “For one first tattoo.”

“What’s the price for a second tattoo?”

“I will have to check my rates,” he said. “But I’m sure we can work something out.”

Chan sat back in his chair like the wind had been knocked out of him. Hanse at least was kind enough to not make him answer him or glare at him while he processed his thoughts, although, he probably would have liked it better if Hanse at least _looked_ at him at all.

“Sit down, you’re making me nervous.”

 _“I’m_ nervous,” Hanse said. “You sit down.”

“I am sitting down.”

“Then stand up then!”

“Do you want me to stand up?” Chan asked as he stood up.

“Wait, no, don’t come over here,” he said, stepping back.

Chan stopped in his tracks. “Alright, I won’t.”

“Okay,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.

“Okay.”

“So like, yeah, the cost of supplies, right? Just slip a $20 or something under the door when you feel like it, and we’ll call us even.”

“Are you taking back your offer,” Chan asked, shocked.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It sounded better in my head,” Hanse said.

“It sounded fine.”

“Your face turned green.”

“It’s from the blood loss,” Chan lied as he shook his arm.

“I realized I made a dumb mistake, and I am begging you to pretend I didn’t,” he said, the color drained from his face.

“Okay,” Chan agreed.

“Okay?” Hanse blinked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll slip a $20 under your door or something, and then we can go out.”

“Great,” Hanse nodded. “Wait, what?”

“I think that’s fair.”

“Don’t do this just because I asked.”

“I’m not,” Chan said. “I’m pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure…”

“Yeah, I’ve only had two minutes to process a thought, and, like, I’m not a Dell.”

Hanse snorted. “The lady who sang the _hello from the other side_ song?”

“Not _Adele_ , you idiot,” Chan wailed. “A. Dell.”

“Oh,” he laughed. “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

“You think,” he said, tired.

“So why are you doing this then?”

“Because since I got here I’ve been thinking that there’s something I’m supposed to tell you, and now that this is out in the air, I don’t feel like I have to anymore.”

“Were you going to ask me out,” Hanse asked with a surprised laugh.

“Maybe?”

“Try it.”

“Do you wanna go out with me,” Chan tried, his heart pounding. What had he just done? Had the impulsive decision to get a tattoo made him an impulsive person? Was tattooed Chan a daredevil? A go getter? A wild one?

“That depends,” he said.

“On what?”

“Do _you_ want to go out with me,” he asked. “Like, is this what _you_ want.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“Maybe,” Hanse repeated. “Okay, let’s see. If I step closer like this, how weird does it feel.”

“It’s a little intimidating,” Chan swallowed.

“Okay,” he thought. “And when I take a step back?”

“It…” Chan considered, stepping forward on his own to replace the removed space. “Hm.”

“Okay, so if I step forward again?”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I mean, it’s better.”

Hanse hummed and reached out to hook a finger around one of Chan’s. “First dates don’t have to be weird.”

“Don’t they make things weird,” Chan asked, finally admitting to himself why he had been so against the conversation in the first place. Hanse was his normal, but now nothing was normal anymore.

“It depends on the date,” he said. “And the dynamic.”

“What’s the dynamic now?”

“No main characters,” he said. “The side couple that everyone roots for.”

Chan considered it. Maybe he wasn’t the person under the streetlight, but if he was the light Hanse came home to, wasn’t that better? Wasn’t it better to live one’s life in that way rather than to be a fleeting mystery or the person the whole world revolved around?

“If we have to stick to this terrible metaphor that I didn’t think through when I started chipping away at it, then who’s the main character?”

“I’m sure some asshole on the third floor thinks it’s him,” Hanse laughed. Chan snorted and hung his head. “Oh, I forgot something.”

Hanse walked off and grabbed a sheet of paper off his desk and scribbled down something. A phone number? Chan already had his though…

“Here,” he said, handing it to him. “Aftercare instructions.”

“What?” Chan laughed.

“To keep your tattoo from getting infected,” he said. “Oh, and if you even look at a swimming pool or a hot tub, I’ll kick your ass”

Chan laughed louder. “Okay! I’ll take good care of it! Don’t worry!”

“Good,” he said. “Now go to bed.”

“But we?” Chan blinked.

“Yeah, I know, there’s a lot to unpack here, but I want you to sleep on it before I make a complete ass of myself,” he said. “At least like this I can blame it on the weird hour and the forced intimacy of giving the guy I like a tattoo.”

“You like me?” Chan blinked again.

“I just said it like fifteen times,” he said, his mouth open in shock. “Dude?!”

“I thought you were just being nice!”

Hanse stared at him in disbelief. “How long have you gone thinking that you’re just a background extra in your own life?”

Chan opened his mouth to speak, but it snapped shut on its own. Hanse’s words were like a slap in the face of cold water, and he didn’t know how to take it.

“I like you,” he said calmly. “I don’t know what kind of extra can flood a whole laundry room or can–.”

“Or can what?”

“Make me say stuff like this even though I know you don’t like me back, but I’m still going to because I know you need to hear it,” he said with a slight air of defeat that made Chan wish he had never come over. A moment of silence passed, and Hanse’s shoulders slumped. He was done.

“I did need to hear it,” he admitted, and Hanse looked down and nodded, accepting the truth he thought he had figured out. “Because I didn’t think I could be someone that a guy as great as you thought of as more than someone to talk to at night because he’s awake when you get off work.”

“I don’t really know how to say this without sounding delusional, but when I come home, I feel like it’s you I’m coming home to. Like I look up on purpose,” he said. “I have a ton of friends and family, and some of them have shittier schedules than me, but I still look up because I miss you. I’m not even joking, if I could make you sit at work with me every day, I wouldn’t even need to come home. I could just live at the shop and make a ton of money as the weird tattoo guy who doesn’t sleep.”

“You need to sleep,” Chan said, scolding him lightly.

“You need to sleep.”

“Make me,” he said like an idiot.

“Does that come before or after first dates,” Hanse said with a mischievous smile. “Because you still haven’t even given me a proper answer to that.”

“Oh, I didn’t?”

“Not that I could tell.”

“Didn’t you want me to sleep on it?”

“No, now I’m feeling insecure,” Hanse said, looking a lot less like he was in control and more like he needed the same convincing that Chan did.

“I think, no, I know, but I think… I like you,” Chan said.

“I think I like you too,” Hanse said.

“What kind of a date could match up to a tattoo as perfect as this?”

“How about a couple of boxes of chicken on the roof?”

“Why that?” Chan snorted, assuming it was a 360 to the laundry incident that Hanse had teased him about so ruthlessly earlier.

“Because that’s where I first asked you out.”

“You what,” he blinked.

“Mhm.”

“And I didn’t say yes?”

“Nope,” Hanse said. “You didn’t say no either though.”

“Why didn’t you drop me,” he balked.

“Because I’m either the most persistent person in the whole world or an idiot, I guess.”

“Has there been… a lot of asking?”

“... kinda.”

“And a lot of not answering?”

“Yeup.”

“How many times should I say yes before it starts to feel real,” Chan asked.

“I’m not sure. Try it.”

“Yes, I’ll go out with you.”

Hanse hummed. “Nope, not working.”

Chan huffed. _“Okay._ Yes, I want to go on a date with you.”

“Getting warmer, but still vague…”

“Vague?!” Chan almost shouted.

“You would know,” he shouted back.

“... alright,” he said. Hanse had a point. If it was clear, he would have known he had been rejecting this man for _years._ “Do you want to do the thing that leads to me calling you my boyfriend?”

“Are you asking me for the free tattoos?”

“Do Hanse.”

He laughed brightly. “I’m just kidding. Okay, we can even just start directly with boyfriend if you want…”

“Start?!” 

“Mhm,” he said, but Chan could tell he was still teasing him. He only smiled like that when he was being the absolute worst, but Chan was too unsettled to tease him back. “Anything else, you have to wait for.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said. “So we start with boyfriend.”

“I can do that,” Hanse said.

“I’m sorry you waited this long.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” he said. “I still got to spend all these nights with you, and I always have something to look forward to, but sometimes it’s hard.”

“What is?”

“Since we’re at 4 am sharing hours,” he stated with a sigh. “For starters, not getting to kiss someone when you want to sucks. Like it really sucks. And I’m kind of a cuddler, so like, _that’s_ been hard, and really, sometimes, or all the time, I guess, I wonder what your legs feel like as pillows. Are they super tight and hard or are they soft and warm? They’re so pretty and muscular, but what do they feel like? I wouldn’t know! And are you warm or do you need to be kept warmed? Do your hands feel soft or like normal hands or are they rough with wear? But I got to touch them earlier finally, and I think they’re perfect, and–.”

While Hanse was busy rambling about all the reasons why not dating Chan was hard, Chan moved closer, and when he was finally where he could stop him, he interrupted by pressing their lips together. It was both because he had no other way to express his emotions and to say he was sorry for being the most dense person on the planet.

The kiss was soft if not clumsy, and the feeling of his lip rings was something he had never experienced before, but they didn’t get in the way like he thought they would have.

“Sorry,” he whispered, pulling away. “I should have asked first.”

“That’s okay,” he said quietly. “Can you do that again, I wasn’t ready.”

“Okay,” Chan laughed. “You ready?”

“Not when you ask me like that!” Hanse panicked.

Chan smiled and kissed him again, catching him off guard for a second time, but this time, instead of freezing in place, Hanse managed to kiss him back, tugging at his shirt to pull him closer. 

“Do you really look for me?” Chan whispered.

“Every day,” he whispered back. “Is that okay?”

“Mhm,” he said, wrapping his arms around his neck, but then he winced at a burning pain on his arm. “Ah!”

“Be careful,” Hanse pleaded. “Try not to let anything touch it, okay? Not even me. Especially not me! No people!”

He reached up and dabbed his neck, and Chan realized there was a smudge. 

“Is that blood?” 

“Kinda,” he said. He calmly wiped himself clean with the disinfectant, but Chan could tell that was like… horrifying.

“I’m clean,” Chan offered. “I literally haven’t slept with another person in so long that if I took a test right now it would say _haha loser.”_

“That’s good to know,” Hanse snorted. “I didn’t mean to make a face. I’m just really not good with blood.”

“You’re a tattoo artist,” he gaped.

“Yeah, but like, you’re the first person to ever bleed on me! I was taken by surprise!”

“Who else could bleed on you if not your boyfriend,” Chan mumbled.

“That’s not a thing,” Hanse said, mildly distressed. 

Chan flushed. “Sorry, these hours make my brain stupid.”

“Do you want to sleep then?”

“Yeah, I guess I could go now,” he said with a yawn, a little embarrassed for getting kicked out so suddenly, especially after they had kissed.

“I mean here,” he said.

“Here?”

“With me,” Hanse said. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I mean, touching goes against the tattoo aftercare rules, but I’ve got a king size bed and a huge crush on my neighbor.” Chan opened his mouth to speak, but Hanse got out one final word. “Please?”

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

“Let’s go to bed. Here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, we’re tired, and I want to sleep with you,” Chan said.”

“When did you come to that conclusion,” he said surprised.

“Probably at some point when I was staying up every night waiting for you to get home,” he said, and it was like everything finally made sense. His late nights, his people watching, his main character crisis… 

He had never been good with processing his feelings, but this… this one took the cake.

“That’s interesting,” Chan said to himself.

“What?”

“You ever just accidentally figure out you’re in love with someone,” he said as he stared at the floor blankly.

“I’m sure it happens all the time,” Hanse offered. “But… is that me?”

“Yeah,” his voice cracked. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“Yeah totally,” he nodded in a daze.

“We should sleep on that too, right?”

“Of course,” Hanse nodded more.

“Together?”

“Uh huh.” More nodding.

“Are you going to say something?”

“Nope,” he nodded.

“Why not?”

“Processing,” he said.

“Do I need to unsay it?” Chan asked.

“Is that even possible?”

“Would you want me to?”

“Absolutely not,” Hanse said. “But maybe you could say it again so that my brain has a chance to catch up.”

“What if I try a gentler approach?”

“Like what?”

“Like, I think I’ve had feelings for you this whole time, but I’m not great at this kind of thing,” Chan said.

“That’s a good start. I like that. I like you.”

“I like the way you process things,” he laughed.

“Thank you,” he laughed back. “So… bedtime?”

“Bedtime,” Chan nodded that time. “Oh, one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I get to tattoo you next time right,” Chan wiggled his eyebrows.

Hanse snorted. “Absolutely not.”

“What about after boyfriend,” he asked, following him to his room.

“Maybe…”

“Maybe?” Chan asked, excited.

“I’ll think about it,” he said over his shoulder.

“Really?!” He almost skipped in place. 

“Yeah, go wash your arm and put some lotion on it.”

“Now?” Chan blinked

Hanse stopped and turned towards him with his hands on his hips. “Did you not read my aftercare instructions?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think–, okay, okay, I’m going!” Chan shouted as he dodged Hanse’s feeble attempt at swatting him on his ass. Once he was in the bathroom, he was finally alone, and a wave of _something_ hit him. Was it regret? Was this something he could back out of? Or was this fear?

He looked at himself in the mirror. He had bags under his eyes, a pool of oil on his forehead, and his hair was standing up in so many directions he could emit a wifi signal. But this was the person Hanse wanted to confess to? Why?

He looked at himself and frowned, unable to make sense of it, but then he glanced down at his swollen tattoo and looked at it properly for the first time in the reflection. 

Hanse didn’t care about superficial things. He liked good people, art, bad jokes, and chicken. Other than the art, how were he and Chan that different? Chan’s greatest flaw was that he was nosy, and Hanse’s was that he indulged him. He was always ready to answer his questions even if they were ridiculous or ready to analyze his thoughts in a way that didn’t make him feel stupid for having them. But then he was always ready to tease him or bother him, and he always knew what to say to get under his skin, but Chan could never remember a time where either one of them had ever really done anything to piss the other off.

If things had to be different, would they really be different at all? 

In reality, the only thing that changed was that Hanse stopped having to hold onto all these feelings that Chan didn’t even realize he had all by himself.

He nodded to himself and finished up his aftercare before returning to the rest of the apartment, determined to never let him feel like he had to endure anything by himself again especially not because of him. Hanse had fallen asleep with his lamp on while waiting, and Chan smiled softly. It wasn’t that much different at all.

He tiptoed over to Hanse’s side of the bed and turned off the light before feeling his way around to the other. He climbed in and laid his sore arm carefully down his side, tattoo side up and closed his eyes, wondering what he was so worried about in the first place.

The next morning, Chan woke up with something or someone warm pressed against him snoring lightly with his arm twisted uncomfortably away from them both. Unable to open his sleep encrusted eyes, he smirked to himself amused that Hanse had snuggled up beside him in his sleep. _Yes, I’m so comfortable and charming he could not resist sneaking over into my arms_.

But when he was finally able to look, he noticed that there was an awful lot of room left for his arm on his side, but he didn’t think his bed was _that_ big. That’s when he lifted his head and realized that _he_ had scooted over in his sleep to Hanse’s side of the bed and attached himself to his back like Hanse was going to take him hiking while the poor guy himself was pushed so far to the side that one of his legs hung to the floor.

Chan gritted his teeth. _Oops._

At least, he thought, that Hanse had no idea that he had practically snuggled him off the bed, and he could probably somehow move him back without waking him. Probably.

Or he could just roll away and pretend like nothing happened. That seemed like the better option. Chan closed his eyes and stealthily wiggled his hips to propel himself away, a fool proof plan. He slid across the bed like there were lasers just inches above him, and he was almost to the other side when everything completely blew up in his face.

“Chan,” Hanse mumbled.

Mission failed.

Chan pretended to be asleep.

“Where are you going,” he muttered. “I’m cold.”

Chan’s heart jumped in his chest as he bit down on his fist. Not only had he been busted, but the person who busted him was adorable.

“I didn’t go anywhere,” Chan lied.

“Come back,” he said, rolling towards him. Chan inched closer, and Hanse slotted himself against him like he was made to fit there. “Keep your tattoo off the sheets.”

“I am,” he said quietly, scared if he talked too loudly, he’d really wake him up, and then Hanse would know how clingy he had been in his sleep and tease him for it. “I can’t wait until the next one.”

Hanse reached down and patted the top of Chan’s thigh, a touch that sent a nervous shock through him, with a satisfied smile. “Two headed mermaid.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, twisting the end of Hanse’s shirt in his fingers fondly.

“A two headed mermaid playing the saxophone,” he muttered, turning over. He slid his knee over his leg, and threw his arm over Chan’s chest, not even bothering to open his eyes. _Well make yourself right at home then, why don’t you._ But Chan didn’t mind at all. In fact, this was something he could easily get used to. “And a deer.”

“Shut up,” he whined. “No more ideas.”

Hanse wiggled, proud of himself. “I have so many more cool ideas, just you wait.”

“I can’t wait to hear them,” he said softly. “Go back to sleep.”

“A gangster shark,” he said, half asleep.

“Where is that going to go,” Chan indulged him.

“Right here,” he slid his hand up Chan’s chest to where his heart was and patted it gently.

“Why?” He couldn’t stop himself from giggling at his terrible tattoo idea and its terrible placement.

“Because that’s my fish-sona,” he said.

_Okay, questionable tattoo idea and questionable placement._

“I thought you weren’t supposed to get tattoos for your partner? It’s bad luck.”

Hanse pouted and buried his face into his shoulder. “You never like my ideas.”

Chan stared up at the ceiling in disbelief. Sleepy Hanse was not only a big baby but an insufferable big baby? Is this what he signed up for?

“Chan,” he mumbled, finally slipping back off to sleep. 

“What is it?”

“Thank you for coming over last night.”

It seemed it was exactly what he signed up for. He thought about the aching tattoo on his arm and smiled knowing he could never have thought of anything that meant more to him on his own, so maybe Hanse was onto something with the two headed mermaid playing the saxophone with the deer and the gangster shark.

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! I hope this was a decent meal for all chanse enthusiasts out there. Even though these two fought me until the end, I really enjoyed writing this pairing so much, and I think I might like to explore them in different settings in the future so thank you to the person who prompted this for letting me test the waters!
> 
> I can be found on twitter @hugsubin :3


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